Protector and Protected
by ArwendeImladris
Summary: Six times Jim was the protector, and the one time he was protected. Implied slash.


Title: Protector and Protected  
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek, and I do not make any money from these fictions.  
Rating: M  
Summary: Six times Jim was the protector, and the one time he was protected. Implied slash.

*****

**1. Pavel Chekov**

Pavel is like the cute little brother that Jim never wanted, but now he cannot imagine the kid not hanging around like a little puppy, all wide eyes and boundless enthusiasm.

So Jim can tease Pavel about his smarts and his enthusiasm and his blue, blue eyes - but nobody else can. Because it's Jim's job as big brother to tease him and take care of him.

So when he comes across Cupcake and his goons from Security bothering Pavel a little after the kid's eighteenth birthday - teasing him about everything from his accent to his virginity to his clumsiness - Jim makes them regret it.

While once upon a time he might have punched their lights out, this time he does the captainly thing and assigns them the worst shifts and the worst, most tedious jobs until they reach Earth some months later for shore leave and repairs - and then he gets them shipped off the Enterprise so fast he's surprised they don't get whiplash.

He has never liked Cupcake anyway - and nobody messes with Pavel Chekov on Jim's ship.

**2. Nyota Uhura**

Nyota - well, she still wants him to call her Uhura, but he thinks of her as Nyota in his head - is sexy and brilliant and compassionate. She's everything Jim should want in a woman.

But he doesn't.

Because he has a really bad track record with relationships, and he doesn't want to lose the damn best communications officer in the fleet for some ill-advised office romance.

Besides, even if he did want her - he's definitely not her type.

She went out with Spock, for heaven's sake.

So Jim flirts with her and teases her and messes with her, but it's more of a running joke now - comic relief, something lighthearted to boost morale on the bridge.

But he's the only one allowed to bother her like that. So when she and Spock break up, and some guy slips something in her drink on the next shore leave when she's mopey and drunk - well, Jim doesn't do the captainly thing that time.

He beats the shit out of the guy.

In fact, he wouldn't be surprised if the bastard was still in a hospital somewhere.

Nobody messes with Nyota Uhura when Jim's around.

**3. Leonard McCoy**

Bones is his best friend - his oldest, truest friend. Bones is the reason Jim is Captain of the Enterprise - Bones is the reason the Earth is still orbiting the Sun.

So Jim is understandably protective of the grouchy old guy who can't resist his puppy dog eyes and patches him up when he does something stupid.

So when Bones's wedding anniversary rolls around, and his ex-wife sends him a nasty, taunting message, and Bones gets upset and more angry and bitter than usual - Jim gets fucking pissed.

Nobody messes with his Bones.

But he can't get the ex-wife fired, and he can't beat the shit out of her - so Jim has to get creative.

He hooks Bones up with two sexy Orion women, takes a video that can only play once so the ex-wife can't blackmail Bones with it, and sends it to her with a taunting message back.

She'll think twice next time before bothering his best friend.

He's never liked Bones's ex-wife - and Spock will break out in hysterical laughter before Jim lets her hurt Bones more than she already has.

**4. Montgomery Scott**

He covers for Scotty when the not-so-secret still in engineering almost gets the man court-marshalled.

Enough said.

Besides, he's never listened to Starfleet brass before - he's certainly not going to do it now when it could lose him the best damn engineer in the universe.

**5. Hikaru Sulu**

He jumped off a drill towards a disintegrating planet because he refused to leave Sulu behind.

And he might've, maybe, kinda, sorta told Sulu about the jerks from security that bothered Pavel.

Maybe.

And he might've, maybe, kinda, sorta looked the other way when those guys from security showed up in sickbay with lacerations – the sort that might've, maybe, kinda, sorta been caused by an angry, badass, fencer-boyfriend.

But that's confidential.

**6. Spock**

He might occasionally try to goad Spock into an emotional response - but nowadays that emotional response is usually laughter. He's gotten a few up-twitches of stern Vulcan lips, and he gets a lot of raised eyebrow, and every once in a while Spock's human eyes will twinkle with something Jim would like to call happiness.

So when Spock's childhood bullies are among the survivors of Vulcan, and they dare to make fun of Spock for those human eyes - well, Jim has to count to ten in twelve different languages before he showed them just what human emotionality REALLY looked like.

Because he couldn't fire them (they weren't under his command) and he couldn't fight them (three of them, one of him - and Vulcans have three times the strength of humans, so it would be more like nine on one...not that he hasn't fought those odds before, but he still remembers the feel of Spock's Vulcan hands around his throat...), he again has to get creative.

Spock Prime comes in handy. The Ambassador is responsible for helping match up new bondmates.

A few words in those pointy ears and those goddamn racists were stuck with the bitchiest, cruelest Vulcan females Spock Prime could find.

Serves them right.

Oh, and Jim beat the ringleader at three-dimensional chess twice – the guy claimed the first was a statistical anomoly, so Jim trounced him a second time just to prove he could - in front on his new bitchy, cruel Vulcan bondmate.

So there.

He's never liked bullies - and no one's allowed to try to elicit an emotional response from Spock but him.

**1. James Tiberius Kirk**

Frank was emotionally and physically abusive when Jim's mother wasn't planetside. His words drove Jim to do increasingly stupid and reckless things in a bid for his mother's attention and affection, and Jim blamed him for his screwed-up view of the world as a young adult.

Jim feels he's matured past that view - he created his own support system aboard the Enterprise, and he knows nowadays that he is worth a whole lot more than nothing.

Frank was not sexually abusive - but only because Jim didn't let him be. When Jim was fifteen, the man beat him bloody. Jim was left shaken and unable to move on the kitchen floor while Frank unbuttoned and unzipped his pants and beat off over Jim's prone form.

As that filthy bastard ejaculated all over his bruised face, Jim looked into those cruel eyes and realized that if he didn't get out of there it was going to get worse.

He got out of there.

It was better selling his body in seedy bars than having his pride and self-worth stolen from him by a man he should have been able to trust in his own home.

His mom and Frank split up some years after Jim ran away from home, and Jim honestly never expected to see the man again.

So it is a surprise to see him in San Francisco when the Enterprise is docked for repairs for a month, and Jim and his crew are on vacation. The bridge crew, plus Scotty and Bones, are relaxing in a civilian bar when the man actually works up the nerve to go up to Jim.

Frank says some things - reveals some things - that Jim would rather he didn't. He has a strong, brassy reputation - and knowledge of childhood abuse would definitely ruin his image.

He normally doesn't care what people think - but his crew matters.

He should have known better than to underestimate them.

Pavel curses the man out in Russian, Sulu glares at him fiercely, Nyota kicks him in the balls, Scotty slips some weird shit into his drink, Bones hits him with a hypospray that will give him really nasty symptoms for a few days - but Spock is just...perfect.

Spock glares at him (as much as a Vulcan can ever glare) and then rationally and logically reams him out.

And Jim knows that the man will never find employment on planet Earth again, and no Starfleet ship is going to take him anywhere - Spock will make sure of that.

Just like Spock was there to comfort him that night...and by comfort Jim means mind-blowing sex, simultaneous with an intense mind-meld, and then loving cuddling.

Jim couldn't ask for more.


End file.
